"Then o'er them as they wept, his hands he clasped, And 'Oh my children,' said he, 'from this day Ye have no more a father--all of me Withers away--the burden and the toil Of mine old age fall on ye nevermore. Sad travail have ye home for me, and yet Let one thought breathe a balm when I am gone-- The thought that none upon the desolate world Loved you as I did; and in death I leave A happier life to you!' Thus movingly, With clinging arms and passionate sobs, the three Wept out aloud, until the sorrow grew Into a deadly hush--nor cry nor wail Starts the drear silence of the solitude. Then suddenly a bodiless voice is heard And fear came cold on all. They shook with awe, And horror, like a wind, stirred up their hair. Again, the voice--again--'Ho! Oedipus, Why linger we so long? Come--hither--come.'" Oedipus then solemnly consigns his children to Theseus, dismisses them, and Theseus alone is left with the old man. "So groaning we depart--and when once more We turned our eyes to gaze, behold, the place Knew not the man! The king alone was there, Holding his spread hands o'er averted brows As if to shut from out the quailing gaze The horrid aspect of some ghastly thing That nature durst not look on. So we paused Until the king awakened from the terror, And to the mother Earth, and high Olympus, Seat of the gods, he breathed awe--stricken prayer But, how the old man perished, save the king, Mortal can ne'er divine; for bolt, nor levin, Nor blasting tempest from the ocean borne, Was heard or seen; but either was he rapt Aloft by wings divine, or else the shades, Whose darkness never looked upon the sun, Yawned in grim mercy, and the rent abyss Ingulf'd the wanderer from the living world." Such, sublime in its wondrous power, its appalling mystery, its dim, religious terror, is the catastrophe of the "Oedipus at Coloneus." The lines that follow are devoted to the lamentations of the daughters, and appear wholly superfluous, unless we can consider that Sophocles desired to indicate the connexion of the "Oedipus" with the "Antigone," by informing us that the daughters of Oedipus are to be sent to Thebes at the request of Antigone herself, who hopes, in the tender courage of her nature, that she may perhaps prevent the predicted slaughter of her brothers.